London torch security cost £750,000
Allegra Stratton and agencies guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday April 22 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/apr/22/london.olympicgames2008
Police officers restrain a protester during the relay of the Olympic
torch in London. Photograph: Ian Walton/PA
Security for the London stage of the Olympic torch relay cost almost
£750,000, a Metropolitan police briefing paper has revealed.
The do***ent also showed that the participation of a Chinese security
team had been agreed in advance, despite the mayor, Ken Livingstone,
insisting he had no knowledge of their involvement.
The London leg of the torch relay was chaotic, with security guards
battling human rights protesters as they attempted to extinguish the
flame.
The Met said officers had taken "appropriate and pro****tionate action"
when "people attempted to breach the safety, security and safe passage
of the torchbearer and convoy".
Television footage showed officers barging some protesters out of the
path of the torch, while other demonstrators who attempted to rush
towards it were bundled over and pinned to the ground.
At least 4,000 demonstrators, including members of the Free Tibet
movement, took part in the protests.
The chairman of the London Olympic Committee, Lord Coe, and
Livingstone were among those who criticised the conduct of the Chinese
guards.
However, the briefing paper said the Chinese flame security team had
been part of a legal agreement between the Greater London Authority
(GLA) and the Beijing organising committee of the Olympic games, drawn
up last year.
The Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate, Brian Paddick, said the
re****t, distributed to members of the Metropolitan police authority,
made it clear Livingstone had known about the guards before the event.
He quoted Livingstone's remarks in a BBC London hustings, broadcast on
April 15, when the mayor said: "We did not organise that.
"We did not know beforehand these thugs were from the security
services. Had I known so, we would have said no."
Paddick said: "The MPA re****t makes it quite clear, in direct
contradiction to what Livingstone has told us, that the Chinese
security guards were part of the legal contract between the GLA and
the Chinese authorities.
"For the Mayor to say he knew nothing about it - and would not have
allowed it - is simply not true."
The MPA said the Chinese team had no executive powers and was not
armed, "though, like all of us, under common law they are entitled to
protect themselves and their property if threatened".
Chinese embassy staff were briefed that the flame security team should
turn and face the torch if it came under attack, using their bodies to
provide a physical barrier.
The legal agreement said police should "provide for the safe and
uninhibited passage of the relay convoy in cooperation with the
(Chinese) security and safety team" and "liaise with the (Chinese)
relay security and safety team on any known or perceived security
threats to the relay".
The cost of the policing operation, which came from MPA funds because
it was a community event, was £746,000.
The operation involved 1,963 police officer ****fts.
Of 37 arrests made, 29 were for breaching the peace, seven for public
order offences and one for handling stolen goods, the do***ent
revealed.
The Met said the GLA had taken overall responsibility for the event,
although police were in charge of security for the torch convoy and
spectators.
Planning for the relay, which saw the Olympic flame carried along a
31-mile route through 10 London boroughs, took more than a year.
Police "made it clear" that constant changes to the route in the weeks
leading up to the relay were creating "vulnerabilities".
The re****t added that no plans had been recommended or approved to
hand over security of London's 2012 Olympics to other countries.
=========================================
Parliament and public misled over Olympics budget, say MPs· Bill has
risen from £4bn to £9bn in three years
· Foreseeable costs left out of original estimate
Paul Kelso
The Guardian,
Tuesday April 22 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/22/tessajowell.olympics2012
Construction work under way at the Olympic Park Stratford, east
London, in preparation for the 2012 Olympics. Photograph: Frank Baron
The government misled the public and parliament over the size of the
budget for the London 2012 Olympics, the head of a parliamentary
committee claimed yesterday as he delivered a damning re****t on the
bidding process for the games.
In a savage critique of the original financial estimates, the public
accounts committee (PAC) accuses ministers and officials of producing
an "entirely unrealistic" budget which excluded "foreseeable" costs.
The original budget for the games was set at £4bn, but the bill has
jumped to £9.3bn in the three years since then. The PAC's re****t
describes the original estimate as unrealistic, and yesterday its
chairman, Edward Leigh, said ministers and officials had
underestimated the true cost in order to win government and public
sup****t for the bid.
"It is now clear that the estimated cost at the time of the bid, just
over £4bn, was entirely unrealistic," said Leigh. "It ignored
foreseeable major factors such as contingency provision, tax
obligations, and policing and wider security requirements. At the same
time, the estimate of the extent to which the private sector would
contribute funding towards the games has proved little more than
wishful thinking.
"We don't know whether it was deliberate or not but it seems
extraordinary that foreseeable costs were left out of the budget," he
said. "I believe that at the very best they were economical with the
actualité, as a minister once put it, in order to win sup****t for the
bid. Parliament and the public were undoubtedly misled over the true
costs of the Olympic project."
The committee's verdict is an embarrassment to Olympics minister Tessa
Jowell and Ken Livingstone, the London mayor, the two most senior
figures responsible for drafting the original budget who remain in
office.
The re****t will also fuel the suspicion, long held in Whitehall and in
Olympic circles, that the cost estimates were downplayed during the
bidding process in order to secure the sup****t of Gordon Brown, then
chancellor, and the public.
London's original budget for the games, published after consultation
between the Department for Culture, Media and S****t, the mayor's
office and the Treasury, put the cost of staging the games at £4.1bn.
That estimate proved to be wildly inaccurate, and in March last year
Jowell announced a new figure of £9.375bn. The increase was largely
attributable to the addition of costs for security (£600m), VAT
(£837m) and a contingency fund of £2.7bn, factors the PAC says were
foreseeable and should have been included in the original budget.
There was also a 35-fold increase in the budget for the Olympic
Delivery Authority, which rose from an original estimate of £16m to
£570m.
The committee also accuses the government of engaging in "wishful
thinking" by overestimating the amount of private-sector sup****t for
the project, originally put at £738m but revised down to £165m.
The lack of a detailed *****sment of the legacy the games will leave
is also criticised, as is the decision to raid the National Lottery
for a further £675m in order to fund the increased budget. The
government has always maintained that the failure to include VAT was
unavoidable as the tax status of the project was not clear until after
legislation was passed to establish the Olympic Delivery Authority. It
also claims it has had no net effect on the public purse. There has
been no explanation for the omission of a contingency fund. Government
guidelines state that publicly funded projects must include a
contingency of around 20%, but senior DCMS sources say the Treasury
approved the omission from the original budget.
Jowell last night denied that the government had intended to mislead
parliament. "I utterly refute any suggestion that there was an
intention to mislead and I hope that the country, parliament and the
PAC would accept that was not the aim. There was categorically no
motive to put in a bid that was anything other than based on the most
accurate forecasts and the best intentions."
She said Olympic bidding rules had required bids to be submitted at
2004 dollar prices, and that the security budget had been
substantially affected by the July 7 2005 London bombings, which took
place the day after London won the games.
She added that 75p in every £1 spent on the site was aiding
regeneration in east London, and that significant private-sector
funding had been attracted by the Olympics.
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